Folks here in Lawrence probably remember the heated debate about East 9th Street and the Arts Center led project that aimed to transform it into an “arts corridor” under the banner, Free State Boulevard. My personal account of that project is now a chapter in the just published, Routledge Handbook of Placemaking.
My involvement began last spring when I was invited by one of the book’s editors, Tom Borrup (Tom had been to Lawrence in the midst of the E. 9th project as a Cultural Planner hired by the City), to share my story for this remarkable new study which looks at the concept and practice of placemaking from an international perspective. Having endured the years-long struggle, first as a critic and later as one who helped shape the project that was implemented, I took the challenge. You can read my essay here. Below in an excerpt.
Adjacent to present-day downtown, East Lawrence gradually slopes down to the railroad and old factories that run along the Kansas River. It’s still full of small single-family homes and backyard gardens. It’s where Langston Hughes went to church as young boy, where Civil Rights marches began and ended and more recently where a massive creative placemaking project funded by ArtPlace was proposed to revitalize us. That project, known as Free State Boulevard is the subject of this essay. As a first-hand witness, I was a participant in fighting the project and in the end one of the people who reimagined it as a more just and equitable endeavor.
On Thursday, June 17th, 2021 contributors to the book responded to provocations and questions from, self-proclaimed interloper, Roberto Bedoya. Watch the video here - Practices of Placemaking: affect, antagonism, attachment